Typi Swartziani Orchidacearum Indiae Occidentalis in Herbario Vindobonense Conservandi
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ZOBODAT - www.zobodat.at Zoologisch-Botanische Datenbank/Zoological-Botanical Database Digitale Literatur/Digital Literature Zeitschrift/Journal: Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien Jahr/Year: 2008 Band/Volume: 110B Autor(en)/Author(s): Pupulin Franco Artikel/Article: Typi Swartziani Orchidacearum Indiae Occidentalis in Herbario Vindobonense conservandi. 213-247 ©Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, download unter www.biologiezentrum.at Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, B 110 213-247 Wien, April 2009 Typi Swartziani Orchidacearum Indiae Occidentalis in Herbario Vindobonense conservandi F. Pupulin* Abstract A leading authority in the taxonomy of the Orchidaceae, Olof S w a r t z contributed a large number o f taxa new to the Science from his joumey to the Caribbean in 1784—1786. Most of Swartz‘s collections are kept at the Regnellian Herbarium (part of Swedish Museum of Natural History), but duplicates of the materials he collected in the West Indies may be found today in several European herbaria, including the herbarium of Joseph Banks (now at the Brithish Museum), the herbarium of the Bergius Foundation in Stockholm, the Carl Peter Thunberg herbarium at the Uppsala University, and the herbarium of the Botanical Garden & Museum of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. Less known is the rieh collection o f Swartz' type specimens conserved at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, which are incorporated in the herbarium of Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. In view of the importance o f historic type material to provide nomenclature stability, mainly for what concems old binomials, and the ongoing effort to form a register of all the Caribbean taxa published by Swartz, an annotated catalogue of Swartz' type material at W is presented. The quality of the material at W is mostly outstanding, and it is important for taxonomists working on the Caribbean, and in general with the Neotropical orchid flora, to take in consideration W in their search for original Swartz specimens. Forty-four sheets corresponding to 41 species originally described by Swartz on the basis of West Indian collections are included in the catalogue, 43 of which are isotypes and one a drawing of type. Other drawings by Swartz, mounted on the specimen sheets, are also annotated in the catalogue. Homotypic synomyms based on Swartz' names are listed, together with the currently accepted nomenclature for each taxon. Key Words: Olof Swartz; Herbarium Naturhistorisches Museum Wien; Orchidaceae, types. Zusammenfassung Olof Swartz beschrieb nach seiner Reise in die Karibik eine große Anzahl von Taxa. Die meisten seiner Belege befinden sich im Regnell-Herbarium (S), Dubletten seiner Aufsammlungen von den Westindischen Inseln sind in zahlreichen Sammlungen: BM (Herbarium Banks), SBT (Bergius), UPS (Thunberg) und Copenhagen. Weitgehend unbekannt ist die reiche Sammlung von Swartz' Typusbelegen im Naturhis torischen Museum Wien (W), wohin sie mit dem Herbarium H.G. Reichenbach fil. gekommen sind. In Hin blick auf die Wichtigkeit historischen Typus-Materials für die Stabilität der Nomenklatur und die Bestre bungen, eine Zusammenstellung aller karibischen Taxa zu erstellen, wird ein Katalog der in W vorhandenen Orchideen-Typusbelege von Swartz präsentiert. Die Qualität des Materials in W ist hervorragend und daher wichtig für alle Forscher im karibischen Raum. 44 Bogen, die zu 41 Arten gehören, die von Swartz beschrieben wurden, sind in diesem Katalog gelistet. Davon sind 43 Isotypen und 1 eine Zeichnung eines Typus. Auch andere Zeichnungen von Swartz, die auf den Bogen montiert sind, werden erwähnt. Es werden die homotypischen Synonyme, sowie die aktuelle taxonomische Position der Taxa angegeben. * Prof. Franco Pupulin, Lankester Botanical Garden, University o f Costa Rica, P.O. Box 1031-7050 Cartago, Costa Rica. — Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A. - Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, FL. U.S.A. - Angel Andreetta Research Center on Andean Orchids, University Alfredo Perez Guerrero, Ecuador. - [email protected] ©Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, download unter www.biologiezentrum.at 214 Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien, B, U q Introduction The Swedish botanist Peter Olof Swartz (Norrköping 1760 - Stockholm 1818) is well known for the important collections of plants he made in the West Indies in 1784-1786, among which orchids, fems, and mosses are particularly represented. Swartz arrived in Jamaica in October, 1783, and botanised in the island until December, 1784, when he left for Hispaniola, where he collected plants in Haiti. He also visited Cuba and other smaller islands for a short period, but no official dates of his stays were recorded. Since June, 1785, he had retumed to Jamaica, where he stayed until 1786, when he sailed for London concluding his tropical joumey (S te a r n 1980). The descriptions, drawings, and specimens gathered during his visit to Jamaica and His paniola served as the basis for Swartz' publications on West Indian botany (S wartz 1788, 1791, 1794, 1799, 1805, 1797—1806), providing the material for several nomen- clatorial types at the generic and specific ranks. As one of the leading authorities of his times in the taxonomy of the Orchidaceae, Swartz contributed a large number of taxa new to the Science from his joumey to the Caribbean. In his „Nova genera & species plantarum; seu, Prodromus " (S w artz 1788), he described 2 new genera and 67 new orchid species. In the next eighteen years, Swartz added 6 new West Indian genera and 7 new species of Orchidaceae, based on his own collections and other gatherings by Samuel Fahlberg (1758—1834) from Jamaica and Saint-Barthelemy (S w artz 1799, 1805, 1806). Most of the personal collections of Swartz are to be found at the Swedish Museum of Natural History's Regnellian Herbarium (part of S*), where they were acquired by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences after his death in 1818. 'Swartz' herbarium formed part of the collections which in 1819 became the Swedish Museum of Natural History (N o r d e n st a m et al. 1994). Liberal and generous with his collections to his compatriots and other botanists of his time, Swartz freely distributed specimens, and duplicates (but in some cases also unicates, i.e. Epidendrum labiatum, Orchis hirtella ) of the materials he collected on his journey to the West Indies are found today in several European herbaria. An important collection is hosted in the herbarium of Joseph Banks (now at BM), where Swartz studied Caribbean materials during his stay in London in 1786. Other are found in the herbarium of the Bergius Foundation (SBT) in Stockholm (N o r d e n st a m et al., 1994), in the Carl Peter Thunberg herbarium, Museum of Evolution at the Uppsala University (UPS-THUNB), and in the Botanical Garden & Museum of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen (C). Less known to the students of the Caribbean orchid flora is the rieh collection of Swartz' Type specimens conserved at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, which are incor porated in the herbarium of Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (Leipzig 1823 — Hamburg 1889). The circumstances under which these materials were obtained by Reichenbach are unclear. Maybe he received a loan when still at the University of Leipzig, where he had been appointed extraordinary professor of botany in 1855, shortly after obtaining his diploma, or after moving to Hamburg as professor of botany and director of the botanic gardens at the Hamburg University, a position he occupied since 1863 until his death. What is sure, he had Swartz' herbarium at hand before 1866, if in his "Beiträge zu abbreviations of herbaria follow Index Herbariorum: http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp ©Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, download unter www.biologiezentrum.at P u pu lin : Typi Swartziani Orchidacearum Indiae Occidentalis in Herbario Vindobonense 215 einer Orchideenkunde Central Amerikas" he expressely stated: Typi Swartziani herbarii holmiani ac propii praesto sunt" (R e ic h e n b a c h , 1866: 79). When Reichenbach died, on 6 May 1889, it was anticipated that the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, would soon be enriched with his collections, but eventu- ally his herbarium, drawings and seeds, botanical library and instruments, were bequeathed to the Imperial Hof Museum at Vienna, under the extraordinary conditions that the orchid collections were to remain in sealed cases and not to be opened until 25 years after his death. Respecting the terms of the will, the materials of Reichenbach's herbarium were not mounted at the Hof Museum until 1914, and the overlooked Caribbean collections by S w artz were incorporated among Reichenbach's specimens without particular annotations. The presence of Swartz' Type material in the Reichenbach herbarium was noted by A c k e r m a n (1995), N ir (2000), D r e ssl e r & F o lso m (2005), and P u p u l in (2007), but no attempt was done before to systematically revise the vast collections of Orchidaceae at Vienna and to annotate the specimens (mostly types) collected by S w artz in the West Indies. It is important for taxonomists working on the Caribbean, and in general with the Neotropical orchid flora, to take in consideration W in their search for original S w artz specimens. Swartz's specimens from the West Indies, especially types, are frequently cited from herbaria that only possess very fragmentary materials, while the quality of the specimens at W let us suppose they were part of the principal Swartz herbarium. Forty-four sheets corresponding to 41 species originally described by Swartz on the basis of West Indian collections were retrieved at W, 43 of which are isotypes and 1 drawing of type. Other drawings by Swartz were mounted on the specimen sheets, and are accordingly annotated in the catalogue. Types of 29 Swartz' names based on Caribbean material were not located at W, namely, Cranichis aphylla, C.